Hi - this is Srinivasan Sampathkumar from Triplicane. I have a passion for Marine Insurance, Cricket and of course Temples especially Thiruvallikkeni.
From Sept 2009, I am posting my thoughts in this blog ; From July 2010, my postings on Temples & Tamil are on my other blog titled "Kairavini Karayinile " (www.tamil.sampspeak.in)
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Monday, April 10, 2017

Spain’s first
female defence minister, Carmen Chacon has died at the age of 46. The cause has
not been released but it has been reported that she had been suffering from
heart disease. Chacon held the job from
2008 until 2011 under Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. After he
lost Spain’s 2011 national election, Chacon ran to be the head of the Socialist
party but narrowly lost. She was the party’s secretary for international
relations until 2016 when she resigned.

Spain is a
sovereign state located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe, with
two large archipelagos, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea and the
Canary Islands off the North African Atlantic coast. It is
the only European country to have a border with an African country (Morocco)[h]
and its African territory accounts for nearly 5% of its population, mostly in
the Canary Islands but also in Ceuta and Melilla. Futbol Club Barcelona commonly known as
Barcelona and familiarly as Barça, the
famous Soccer club is based in
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Madrid is
its capital.

Spain, now a days
is accused of having seized on Brexit as
an opportunity to revive its claim to Gibraltar. Madrid has successfully
lobbied Brussels to declare that no EU-U.K. deal will apply to the Rock except
with Spanish approval. Gibraltarians are horrified, fearing that Spain will now
demand concessions on sovereignty.Spain ceded Gibraltar to the U.K. "in
perpetuity" in 1713. It understandably resented the transfer, and tried to
grab the Rock back during the American Revolution – resulting in a rather
chivalrous siege, in which gifts of food and wine exchanged across the lines.
After the failure of that campaign, the claim was maintained in theory, but not
pursued in practice, until Franco revived it as a way to stoke Spanish
nationalism. Between 1954 and 1984, Spain closed the border, forcing
Gibraltarians to rely on air and sea connections to the outside world.

Unsurprisingly, the
30,000 locals – Llanitos as they are colloquially called – are reluctant to
accept Spanish rule. Their territory has, after all, been British for longer
than it was Spanish. In 1967, they held a referendum, opting for British over
Spanish sovereignty by 12,138 votes to 44. In 2002, they voted on a Spanish
proposal for joint sovereignty, and rejected it by 17,900 to 187. Yet every
Spanish party, except the Catalan separatists, claims Gibraltar !

A Russian computer
programmer, Pyotr Levashov, has been arrested in the Spanish city of Barcelona,
a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Madrid said on Sunday.It was unclear why
Levashov was arrested. The embassy spokesman declined to give details for his
arrest, and Spanish police and the interior ministry were not available for
comment on Sunday.Russian television station RT reported that Levashov was
arrested under a U.S. international arrest warrant and was suspected of being
involved in hacking attacks linked to alleged interference in last year's U.S.
election.Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department's criminal
division, said: "The U.S. case remains under seal, so we have no
information to provide at this time."

The U.S. government
has formally accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails to help the
campaign of Republican President Donald Trump. The U.S. Congress is also
examining links between Russia and Trump during the election campaign.Russian
officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly denied that
Russia tried to influence the election.

Spain is mourning
Carme Chacón, the former defence minister who died on Sunday and was famously
photographed in 2008 reviewing troops in Afghanistan while seven months
pregnant.MsChacón was found dead at her Madrid home, aged 46, after a neighbour
had raised the alarm. A congenital heart problem was the likely cause of
death.She was Spain's first woman defence minister, symbolising the change of
culture since the end of military rule.In 2007 MsChacón also served as housing
minister in the Socialist government led by ex-Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero.

She attracted
global coverage when at the age of 37, and seven months pregnant, she visited
Afghanistan, five days after being appointed defence minister.She told Spain's
El Pais daily "pregnant or not, I was clear that my first duty was to visit
those who are able to put their lives at risk for higher values: for other
people's freedom"."A pregnant woman is not sick. Sure, it's harder
when you're pregnant and on your feet all day. I wanted to express society's
gratitude to those who put themselves in danger to bring peace to regions of
conflict."

Spaniard Victor
Orive-Martin tweeted the famous photo, in a tribute to MsChacón, calling her
"a wonderful human being".After the Afghanistan trip she also
reviewed troops in Madrid while pregnant in May 2008.She was the daughter of a
fire service official in Barcelona and his lawyer wife. As a girl she had been
advised to lead a calm life because of her heart condition. But she ignored the
advice repeatedly - including the suggestion that it would be risky to have
children, El Pais reports.

"Spain is
losing a distinguished figure from its modern political scene. And Spanish
women are losing someone who always took a stand to emphasise the importance of
women's roles in modern society, and among the college's faculty and
students." – is the tribute given to her by the Spanish Press.